


Data

by herbailiwick



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herbailiwick/pseuds/herbailiwick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr's pirateking42 prompted me with Sherlock making a love potion and John finding out. </p><p>John is furious, and sets Sherlock straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Data

I was starting to find Sherlock's latest experiment increasingly _not fine_. He would wait til I was out of the house to work on it, and the fact that I had  _noticed_  that terrified me a bit. Why was he being so obvious? Where was the trick?

He hid his notes. I couldn't figure out where he hid them, but I knew I needed to, because he wouldn't give me a straight answer when I admitted to curiosity. He just gave me an infuriating little shrug because, you know, he's Sherlock Holmes and he's so far advanced beyond the rest of the world.

I looked in cabinets, even having to use a chair for the high ones. I tried in his room, wherever I could see. I tried the closet. I tried asking Mrs. Hudson if she was in on it. Finally, I reached under his mattress, just to see. That's where adolescent boys hide things, isn't it? Close enough.

If they hadn't been there, I'd almost think they might have been hidden among my own things. He had no sense of privacy...says the man who reached under Sherlock Holmes's mattress.

The notes were about love. It was a bit charming, at first. Sherlock, heart ever impenetrable, mind on purer things than sex and sentiment. 

But the notes soon turned scary. There were scribbled sentences that raised red flags. "How do you bottle this?", he wrote. "What could produce this reaction in a man?", he asked. "How do I get the proportions right?" he wondered.

The measurements written for the person the potion was to be tested on reflected my own.

***

"Sherlock, no," I said, greeting him at the top of the stairs with his own notes. I threw them down the stairs at him, spilling them, getting them out of order. "What are you playing at, hm?"

He had the decency to look embarrassed. "I wasn't going to do it!" he said.

"Yes you were! You were going to make it for sure. I would swear by it," I said. He started to come up the stairs, tripping over the papers, and I moved back. "Stay," I warned.

"Alright, I was going to make it," he admitted. "But I wasn't going to test it. Even I wouldn't...you think I'd do that?" he rounded on me.

"I'm not sure. I don't know what you would or wouldn't do for science, short of killing." I retreated into the kitchen to get the kettle on.

"John," he said, "I was just going to...."

"Going to what?" I demanded. I wasn't playing any games, not about all this.

He flopped onto the couch heavily. "I just wanted the option," he said. "Even if I'd never take it."

I slammed down my spoon, rounding on him. "You can't possibly mean that!" I yelled. "You can't mean that you'd actually want to force me to fall in love with you! This is beyond the pale." I laughed harshly. "Sherlock Holmes, going about forcing sentiment and feelings on people for a good thrill. Wonderful. How interesting." I ran a hand over my face. "God, I gotta get out of here."

"John," he said, standing.

I raised a hand to stop him. "No, Sherlock. No."

"I don't think I meant option!" he said desperately. "I think I meant hope."

I took pause at that, considering it for a moment. "Right," I said. "Well, I'll be off. We'll talk about this later." I began to head down the stairs. "I'm taking your notes as collateral."

"Going out with Stamford?"

"None of your business," I said, stacking the pages. "None of your _damn_ business." I made my way to the door, barely repressing the urge to tell Sherlock to sit on the couch and think about what he'd done.

***

"He's just like that," said Mike. "He wouldn't cross a line of free will, though. He just likes you a lot, that's all."

"He does?" I'm not sure why I was surprised. Maybe I was surprised that Mike knew. Maybe I was surprised it wasn't all just my own feelings clouding everything. I passed Mike the notes, let him flip through them.

"He's a puppy dog," Mike said kindly as he thumbed through the wrinkling pages. "And, yeah, of course he does. He's liked you since he met you."

Alright, was Mike taking the piss? I mean..."How do you know that?"

Mike paused, looking over at at me with honest blue eyes. "Not sure. But I just pick up on things. Glad I didn't give him my phone," he teased. "Gave him more things to deduce about you."

"Hang on." My head felt like it'd just exploded. "You did that on purpose?"

"Right." He handed the notes back to me. "I thought it'd be nice, since he likes data and all." I let out a heavy breath. He did like data.

"I say when you get back home, you hear him out. It's a bit scary, what he was working on. A drug. But he's not daft enough to think that'd be real love, is he?"

"Is he?" I asked, not very sure.

Mike laughed and bought us another round.

***

"Back again, are we?" Sherlock said, giving me his expression that meant I was being dull.

"Well, fuck you, Sherlock," I muttered. I offered the notes to him. He didn't accept them, and looked away haughtily. I took them with me to my chair.

"What are you doing with these, really?" I asked. I wanted the truth, but I would be upset if he didn't give it to me.

"I wanted the hope. It's what I meant to say, since it wasn't actually a viable option and I get that. I just wanted you to like me. We all do silly things," he said, sighing.

"We all do. You don't. So you really like me, then? Mike said so."

"That's why I like Mike," Sherlock said approvingly.

"You know how you get someone to like you, Sherlock?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes, lying down, turning his face away. "Spare me. You are not your lady friends."

I ignored it best I could, pressing on. "You get someone close to you. You make them feel important, like they're needed. You get them to trust you, and you start to trust them in turn. Your lives become better with the new presence. Things click, though not every single thing. You improve each other. Time passes, and you start to think about how lucky you are.

"You share interests, compromise about the kitchen area, complain about how stupid family members can be. You share music and watch crap telly and teach each other about the things you're good at. You don't mix up some impersonal love potion."

Sherlock scowled at me. "That was not kind," he said.

"Yes, it was," I scowled right back. I'd just admitted that he'd stolen my bloody heart, and here he was...apparently oblivious. Ah. "Sherlock...."

"You don't have to patronize me. I get it. If you want to leave, you can leave, but don't dare poke fun at me. I won't have it, I _won't have it._ " He leaned forward and ripped the notes out of my hand.

"You are," I said through my teeth, "all at once the most intelligent and the most thick-headed person I know." I cut off his protest, raising my hand for him to stop. "If I was poking fun, it's not because I don't care for you—in fact, I just told you I do. If I was poking fun, it was because you can afford to take the normal route, just once. Normal works."

"Normal does not work," Sherlock said, but he looked a little uncertain.

I stood, looming over him a bit. "Oh yeah? Then how come you got me to fall for you without any of your bloody notes?"

I left him there, stunned, on the sofa. It was a victory.

***

The next morning, I saw remains of the notes in the ashes of the fire. Sherlock acted as if nothing was different as we started our morning, but we both knew everything was going to change.  

I decided to start writing up some notes for him about how I felt. I thought he'd appreciate some more data.


End file.
